Thoughts on the Deal

I would have much preferred raising tax rates at the original $250K like the president has been saying for over a year now rather than the one we got.  In the grand scheme of things, it makes little difference in terms of revenue.  It matters more because it's what the president said he would not budge nor compromise.  He did.

Other than that, I have no other disappointments in the Fiscal Cliff deal.  I don't see how the president's hand would have been any stronger weeks from now than it was on Tuesday.  There was no need to allow UI to expire.  Getting an extension for an entire year is a huge win for the president and not enough has been said about it.  He deserves credit and if it cost him $100 billion in revenue over 10 years then it was something he considered worth doing.

My take on all this is that Dems are just unhappy with the president moving on an item he claimed to be unmovable.  But that's what compromises are, that's what democracy is.  We just had a president that was said to be immovable on issues. He didn't compromise, it was his way or no way.  If you didn't do what his administration wanted you were with the terrorists.  He presided over the largest economic collapse in 80 years and created a $1.4 trillion deficit.  He never once had a majority approval rating his entire second term and left office the most disliked and unpopular president since Hoover.  We absolutely don't aspire to be anything like that.  I'll take Barack Obama's governing style any day.  The thing we need to do right now to help our deficit the most is to get people back to work. There are no more excuses.  People have to have jobs.